Category: Solar Desalination Systems

Renewable energy systems (RESs) offer alternative solutions to decrease the dependence on fossil fuels. The total worldwide renewable energy desalination installations amount to capacities of less than 1% of that of conventional fossil-fueled desalination plants (Delyannis, 2003). This is mainly due to the high capital and maintenance costs required by renewable energy, making these desalination…

The operating principle of indirect collection systems involves the implementation of two separate subsystems: a renewable energy collection system (solar collector, pressure vessel (PV), wind turbine, etc.) and a plant for transforming the collected energy to freshwater. Some examples employing renewable energy to power desalination plants are presented in this section; a more extensive review…

Among the non-conventional methods to desalinate brackish water or seawater is solar distillation. This process requires a comparatively simple technology and can be operated by unskilled workers. Also, due to the low maintenance requirement, it can be used anywhere with a smaller number of problems. A representative example of the direct collection system is the…

Desalination can be achieved using a number of techniques. Industrial desalination technologies either use phase change or involve semi-permeable membranes to separate the solvent or some solutes. Therefore, desalination techniques may be classified into the following categories: phase change or thermal processes and membrane or single-phase processes. All processes require a chemical pre-treatment of raw…

The provision of freshwater is becoming an increasingly important issue in many areas of the world. In arid areas, potable water is very scarce and the establishment of a human habitat in these areas strongly depends on how such water can be made available. A brief historical introduction to solar desalination is given in Chapter 1,…